


Nights in White Satin

by LadySophrosyne



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Multi, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:37:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24830143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySophrosyne/pseuds/LadySophrosyne
Summary: “Catra,” Adora started, more breathily than she was intending. She took a few seconds to restore her voice, then continued: “We should talk. About us.”Catra’s ears stiffened in agitation.Talking was hard. Touching was easy.Catra released Adora’s hands, only to reach under her shirt, claws creeping up towards her breast with slight and taunting pressure.“Why don’t… you talk, and I make it harder for you to keep talking?”//With Horde Prime just vanquished, the Rebellion adjusts to peacetime on Etheria. Adora and Catra navigate their newly-acknowledged love, Bow and Glimmer announce their engagement, Entrapta makes a pivotal discovery, and Frosta fortifies her kingdom.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55





	1. Rest

**Chapter One: Rest**

  
Frosta had fallen asleep at her post. The soothing crackling of the firepit persisted, and its warmth perhaps now had some atmospheric analog in the dreams of the slumbering rebels strewn around. 

Or, perhaps on the night of their victorious insurgence, ‘rebels’ was no longer apt. But that was a concern for the morning. As was, apparently, tending to the fire and ensuring its containment. 

Instead, Frosta dreamt of childhood: for her, a patchwork of other people’s rumors. The moment she could read her first word signaled the attrition of amusement. In place of fancies and fantasies were rules and regulations of royalty, diplomacy, and parliament. Scroll after scroll of clauses and sub-clauses. 

For now, then, she dreamt of weaving flower garlands.

➺

Adora finished wringing out her washcloth. Her bones buzzed with a novel ache, a kind of weariness that was only possible in the aftermath of such colossal peril. 

Prime was no more—she’d made sure of that, ironically enough, by cleansing his host of him. And that was another complication: what to do with Hordak? Perhaps surveillance and interrogation were in order. This new peace, restored through tremendous resilience and sacrifice, would not be compromised by old malignity.

And then there was—

_“You love me?”_

Adora’s heart thumped. Her face hottened.

_“You’re such an idiot.”_

She had offered up the next words unthinkingly. At that moment, with the Heart blazing behind, with all of Etheria in precipice, she had only feelings, broad and deep: pride, awe, jubilation, and…

_“I love you, too.”_

Love. She had said it.

She had _reciprocated_ it.

And then.

A lip-meeting most overdue.

It’s a bit like a croaking belly calling one back to reality. It’s not that you weren’t hungry, it’s that you had dissociated quite effectively from your baser cues so that you might funnel your faculties into completing the task at hand. 

Now with an empty task list, her baser cues crescendoed.

Adora stayed in that kiss, and brought it here, to her tent in the camp. Now Catra’s lips had wandered away from her own and onto her jawline, about her ear, taking her earlobe in between her fangs, just a little pressure, and now her hand was sliding over her shoulder, down, and then sheathing her breast, gently clamping her nipple with the valley of her fingers—

“Hey, Adora?” a voice asked cautiously, coming from the entrance flap to her tent. 

With a shout, Adora nearly jumped out of her sleepwear, all but tumbling over the leg of her cot. 

It was Catra, with full and vulnerable eyes which first glanced, then quickly averted. Hand behind her head, resting on her nape; tail a nervous metronome. 

“H-Hey Catra,” Adora replied, crossing one arm over her torso to clasp the other.

There were several moments of silence. Like a limpid fog, the silence spread out before them, wrapping around their legs and moving headward. 

Why could they communicate so much in a glance, a gesture, and so little in speech?

“How… are you?” Adora managed, immediately reprimanding herself. What a stupid thing to ask. 

Catra’s tail flickered with agitation. Steeling herself, and lifting her gaze back to Adora’s, she took several steps toward her before cupping her jaw and resuming that last kiss. 

Perhaps it was that novel ache of Adora’s bones that caused the buckling of her knees. This kiss was softer, less a confirmation and more a question, and by the time they parted from it, Adora’s hands had wrapped bracingly around Catra’s. She ran her fingers over Catra’s palms, and leaned her forehead in to touch the other’s. 

The hyper-consciousness and calculatingness so characteristic of Adora’s mind retreated. She kissed her again—what a nameless sensation this was—and, in her stupor managed to say something a little less stupid:

“Stay the night with me, Catra.”

Catra had begun purring.

“Took you long enough to ask, dummy.”

Adora took her hand and started onto the cot, which gave a curt whine as each of them climbed atop. It was intended for a single person, so did not make for comfortable spreading, but luckily compactness was the aim this evening. 

Wordlessly, Adora filled the crescent of space between them, her rear against Catra’s front, and they molded into one another. Catra embraced her beloved, burying her face into her nape. Their legs interlaced, which for both of them was a secret reward, as now they needn’t sneak any skin-to-skin contact. Up until now, touches were restricted to hand-tugs and shoulder taps that lingered a little longer than necessary. Now there was a kind of permission for, a promise of, caress.

There was more talking to do, but that was a concern for the morning.

Catra’s quiet and persistent purring lulled like the sea; their breathing, too, slowly came to mirror that rhythm. 

How could something this new feel this familiar?

They both wondered some form of this sentiment as they drifted asleep. 


	2. Conscious

**Chapter Two: Conscious**

Catra stirred first. 

At some point during the night, Adora had flipped, and was now mildly drooling against Catra’s chest. The conscious one smiled, and took time for a lingering gaze. Accustomed to quick and stealthy peeping, she allowed herself to take in the details only visible by the microscope of intimacy: Adora’s hairline, the light, waving strands now disarrayed by slumber, the faint traces of some textured fabric that had left its stamp in her skin. 

With soft, puny grunts, Adora rolled onto her back, her open palm beside her face. Her sleep tank had bunched in several directions overnight, leaving her toned abdomen on display and her modest breasts barely hidden. 

When Catra was aroused, her tail always flicked in a vertical “s” wave. The frequency of that wavelength escalated with her heart rate, and right now she could feel them both working in cahoots, echoing one another’s rhythm. 

That feminine line, the subtle but unquestionable musculature, her waist curving into sweet hips, the sweeter pastry presumed at the center of those hips; the way her breasts rose and fell unassumingly, the way her skin was an open canvas for Catra’s claws. 

The urge within Catra was somewhere between devouring and destruction. 

“Mmm…” groaned Adora, face puckering. She blinked her eyes open with a yawn, stretching out her shoulders and her spine, and saw Catra inches away. Startled, then relieved, then self-conscious, she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth to remove evidence of her drooling, believing herself far subtler than she was.

Catra gave a small smile, propping up onto her elbow.

“Hey,” said the felinesque one. 

“Hey,” answered the First One. “Have you been awake long?”

“Long enough to appreciate how cute you are when you’re sleeping, miss leaky faucet.”

“Hey!” Adora objected, giving Catra a shove.

Catra grabbed Adora’s assaulting arm by the wrist, kissing her fingers.

“I said ‘cute’.”

“Did you rest well?” Adora asked.

She always had a way of radiating her sincerity that made Catra feel exposed. Her heart flickered, and she hid her face in Adora’s pillow.

“Fine,” she replied.

_ More than fine. I can’t remember the last time I slept so peacefully,  _ she emended, only to herself.

Catra’s hand was still weakly gripping Adora’s wrist, and Adora slid her hand down so that their palms touched, perching their fingers at their respective windows. 

Now leading, Catra folded her fingers down and closed their hands together. She emerged from her hiding place and kissed Adora, pressing their clasped hands into the bed beside Adora’s head. 

Each new kiss between them felt like a continuation of the last. This one was deeper, more needful. Soon it was wetter and rowdier, too, the women softly huffing and grunting into one another’s mouths. Catra had slipped into a dominant posture, knee now firmly planted between Adora’s legs. Their stomachs skimmed and scraped. The grip of their clasped hands mutually tightened, and now Catra found Adora’s other hand and pinned it down to the left. 

Her tail was a furious sine wave.

They broke to gaze at one another. Each resupplied her own lungs.

Catra had never seen Adora so red. Even after vigorous simulation training in the Fright Zone, her cheeks had only ever lightly rusted. 

With Catra having impaired their hands, they were in a fervid stalemate. 

“Catra,” Adora started, more breathily than she was intending. She took a few seconds to restore her voice, then continued: “We should talk. About us.”

Catra’s ears stiffened in agitation.

Talking was hard. Touching was easy.

Catra released Adora’s hands, only to reach under her shirt, claws creeping up towards her breast with slight and taunting pressure.

“Why don’t…  _ you _ talk, and  _ I _ make it harder for you to keep talking?”

Though everything about this gesture made her slicken in southwardly places, Adora stopped her, clasping her hand over Catra’s just as it settled over her breast. 

“No, Catra, stop. We’re not going to manipulate each other. Not anymore.”

A little flare of anger lit up in Catra. She hated being accused, but she hated even more being accused of any behavior that reminded her of Shadow Weaver. 

Adora saw that flicker of rage, and touched Catra’s cheek.

She knew very well how quickly that flare catches, how inflammable the heart was, how it spreads, engulfs, and scorches. How a selective amnesia sets in, and all of a sudden comfort, once a welcome guest, now resides as a stranger in the chambers of the heart. 

“Stay with me, Catra. I’m not blaming you,” her voice was soft and truly loving, “I know these feelings hurt. I’m,” she paused, then with confidence corrected herself, “ _ we’re _ not going to run away from them anymore. We can’t. Not if…” 

Catra had clamped her eyes closed. She hated—though ‘hate’ is another way of saying one can’t at all make sense of—the meeting of these feelings. Anger at being accused, at being pitied, at reflexively perpetuating abusive behaviors; this bundle of loathing bumping against her feelings for Adora, and Adora’s adamant forgiveness, and the comfort of her voice, her touch. Frustrated tears pooled up below her eyes and tumbled in beads.

“Not if  _ what,  _ Adora?! Finish it!”

Her voice was both much more broken and much more vicious than she intended.

“Catra,” she moved up and rested her forehead against hers, “Catra, look at me.”

Catra could not yet look at her.

“I’m right here,” Adora soothed. She kissed Catra below her eyes, lips lapping up her sorrow. “Whatever you’re feeling now, you need to feel. I’ll stay with you while you do. I’ll feel it with you if you’ll let me.”

Gently, as if she were handling a mine, Adora brought Catra’s face into her neck. She stroked the back of her head, pads of her fingers raking delicately over her scalp. 

Catra’s body surrendered some tension. Her tears continued to tumble, though now in tiny rivulets. 

Adora kissed the top of her head, then rested her chin there.

“Who’s the leaky faucet now, hm?”

Catra’s tail flicked.

“You’re such an idiot,” she half-whispered into her neck.

“Yeah,” Adora said, “I know.”

Coming out of hiding, Catra could finally meet Adora’s eyes. Everything she had expected to find there—disgust, doubt, disappointment—was replaced with the antithesis of each of these. 

“What were you saying, Adora? I’m…” she darted her eyes away, but then brought them back, “I’m listening.”

Adora kissed her.

“We can’t run away from these feelings if we’re going to love one another. At least,” with her thumbs, Adora wiped away any remaining dampness from her lover’s cheeks, “if we’re going to be any good at it.”

“We all know that your perfectionist brain won’t let you settle for anything less, princess.”

“That’s right,” Adora said with a knowing smile, “I don’t settle.”

At the kindest compliment she’d ever received, Catra blushed and said nothing, wit suddenly effete. 


End file.
